Cartoonish Denis Ten appears on Instagram

Cartoonish Denis Ten appears on Instagram

Denis Ten

ASTANA. KAZINFORM — A new instagram account features an animated copy of Denis Ten, a known figure skater from Kazakhstan, as reported by MIA Kazinform. “With more work, there is less time for social networks. As the season starts, my instagram is dying. But we have a new one this winter. Ladies and gentlemen, meet @mini.denis! For over a year now, @dinara_butasheva and I have been workingon creating this project (and more).” - Denis Ten has introduced the account through his own page.

Denis Ten and Mini-Denis (Instagram)

Dinara Butasheva, a graphic designer, had previously created illustrations in books like “Kazakh folk tales” and “The tales of grandpa Daut”, and worked on educational board games for the “Balapan” publishing house, and on textbooks for Nazarbayev intellectual schools. Dinara actively shares her art on social networks like Facebook and Instagram. She also has a gallery of her best works on Instagram.

“There is a small creative team behind the Mini: Denis Ten and I. Denis is in charge of ideology, and I draw the visual character.”

“Mini seemingly looks like a child, but he is in fact older. Like all characters drawn in chibi style, he has the cartoonish proportions that make him rather cute. But at the same time he’s independent, a grown-up. He has a fascinating family history, which he will be excited to share in his future posts. This is a long-term and interactive project with many rigorous details” said Dinara Butasheva in her interview to Kazinform. According to her, the goal of this project is to be liked by people.

“Mini-Denis is not just a doll or an animated chibi — there are many other projects like that already, although this is the first character like this in Kazakhstan. What makes Mini unique is his personality, he’s an individuality before anything else. And like any other person, he has his own psychological individuality. He reacts to things and interacts with them according to his personality,” Dinara said.

The illustrator thinks that it’s hard to impress anyone with special effects these days, so a lot of scrupulous work went behind creating Mini-Denis’ character.

“As a result, our chibi stands out in a sea of others. He’s really alive, which makes him unique. Don’t be surprised if he remembers your date of birth and wishes you a happy birthday. For this, however, you’d have to be his true fan. Speaking of fans, Mini acquired about 1500 followers in less than a week after the launch. Apart from likes, there has been a huge amount of interaction in the comment section — people mention him by name, they want to interact and communicate with him. They not only care about the visuals, but also care about his personality. Today, Mini only started to talk about himself, but he still has a lot to share. He will learn and grow, and it will be obvious not only visually, but will show in his behaviour,” said D. Butasheva.

In the long-term, the project creators have several paths for development.

“It’s still too early to discuss. I can only say that, in future, we can expect not only static pictures. Miniwillbecome animated. Andabitlater, hewillnotonlybe visual,” shared Dinara.

The designer also shared with us the process of coming up with stories and posts.

“We have a plan and different stages of development, but sometimes an idea comes suddenly, and we don’t wait to implement it. The process can go both ways: a story based on a photo or a photo based on text. A photo can give us a hint on what we need to illustrate and how we should caption it. Sometimes, a photo and the illustration are made only after we (Denis, mostly) have a good idea to implement. Technically, the realism fully depends on the photograph taken. I just follow the atmosphere: lighting, shadow, angle. It’s funny that the fate of most pictures is dictated by the character himself”, Dinara said.

Illustrator Dinara Butasheva has been working with Denis Ten for almost two years now. During this time, she helped the athlete carry out a few visual ideas, and also a few independent presentations for other projects not related to Mini.

“The Mini is not the first project we started our cooperation on. Our first work has been done on sets of stickers for fans of figure skating. The first set is free to use on Telegram (https://t.me/addstickers/d10friends), and the second one will be available in another messenger, but it’s officially not launched yet. During our work, we had many more ideas, like exclusive fan arts, designer fantasies, comics and many more, including Mini. I’m a home-based freelancer, so I don’t travel much, but Mini needs good pictures as a background. Mini’s adventures are possible because Denis takes photos during his own travels. Also, the text, the interaction with the followers, and Mini’s personality are all done by Denis,” Dinara shared.

“Most people have just found out about Mini after Denis made a post on Instagram. We were honestly surprised by the reaction. The project immediately drew attention and gathered a very active group of fans. The amazing thing is that the fans understood the philosophy behind the account. They talk directly to Mini, ask many different questions: what’s his age, his favorite food etc. It’s really great to see that they accepted him as a person. It’s also amazing that the character already has fan-made accounts, and recently one of the fans sent us her own drawing of Mini. We launched less than a week ago and this is a great start. It’s interesting that even though this character is from Kazakhstan, most of his fans are from abroad. This gives us new opportunities to promote Kazakhstan to people of other countries. They have a lot of new things to see and experience with the help of our project,” Dinara added.

Dinara called the cooperation between her and Denis pure joy.

“I’ve been following the figure skating scene since 2014. Before that, I just saw glimpses of competitions — when you draw, your eyes are only focused on paper, especially with the university and work. But during the Sochi Olympics, I understood that I want to follow this sport. It was a shock: a new world — changing not only my drawing style, but many more things in my life. When you see how figure skaters aspire to achieve their goals and fully apply themselves, you get inspired by it. I think that many fans of this sport will understand me. Obviously, I cheered for Denis. I even took him as a role model for my future years: work and be persistent, no matter what. So imagine my reaction when we started working together — it was pure joy. We now have a co-op project. Even with the responsibility, the creative process is very enjoyable. Keep an eye out for our work, the best things are still ahead”, promised Dinara Butasheva.